


Amidst The Chaos

by AnOddSock



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Barebacking, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Claiming, Collars, Dom/sub Undertones, Dubious Consent, Embedded Images, Established Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, False Memories, Hallucinations, Hurt Sam Winchester, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mind Rape, NSFW Art, Orgasm Delay/Denial, POV Dean Winchester, Painful Sex, Painplay, Porn With Plot, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Rough Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Torture, angel possession, light body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-13 09:23:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20580200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnOddSock/pseuds/AnOddSock
Summary: The apocalypse began and Dean’s world shattered. The rest of the world wasn't too far behind.Years later, after fighting and planning and hoping, there's finally a chance to get through to Sam — to give him the opportunity to come kicking and screaming back to the surface and wrest control away from Lucifer.Dean doesn't want to hurt Sam, but he'll do whatever it takes. He just needs to find a way to connect, a way in. And he always was better with his hands, and his touch, than he was with words.





	Amidst The Chaos

**Author's Note:**

> This is my fic for the first ever SPN Dark Fic Big Bang. It’s been one of my favourite ever things to write, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> My artist is Phoenix1966 [and you can find them here](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenix1966/pseuds/Phoenix1966) and [and on tumblr](https://phoenix1966sbottom.tumblr.com/). Their work is astounding and I’m beyond thrilled with what they’ve created here, they were a joy to work with and I’m so glad they picked my fic. Thank you Phantom! [Please go share some love on the artwork itself!](https://phoenix1966.livejournal.com/33888.html)
> 
> Big thank you to [Hermit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hermit9/pseuds/Hermit9) and [blindswandive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlindSwandive/pseuds/BlindSwandive) for beta reading for me and helping me make this fic the best it could be, you’re both stars.
> 
> [Song that helped inspire me while I was writing this](https://youtu.be/h2okyHdMr10)  
Blame by Bastille  
_You go sleep with the fishes_  
_There's no room for you here_  
_Wrap your teeth around the pavement_  
_'Cause your body's a message_  
_Send my regards to hell_
> 
> _Fall upon your knees saying_  
_"This is my body and soul here"_  
_Fall and beg and plead say_  
_"You've got the power of control here"_  
_Don't pin it all on me_

Years of heartache, months of planning, and this is what it came down to; this is what the end looked like.

A field, sparse with trees, bordered by hedges and a crooked fence. A copse of woodland in the distance. A large open sky. Not unlike Stull Cemetery, where it had all begun— where it had all gone wrong. But also not like that at all: there were no dead buried here, no easy access to the bowels of hell. Only the world, in its scarred and ugly glory. Only life, something worth fighting for.

Dean stood alone in the wind that threatened to howl but only whispered, cold but not unbearably so, and watched the sun tick across the sky.

It was time.

He walked to the spot, sweeping his eyes across the area for one last check. No-one was in sight and there were no outward signs of anything being awry. He felt the pulse through the fibres of his being as he stepped over the proverbial line in the sand, the point of no return. He was doing this.

He felt the quiverings of anticipation in himself, adrenaline starting to flow, muscles tensed ready to fight. There was something else beneath his skin that sang too, but he couldn’t focus on it, not right now.

He turned on the spot, inhaling deeply, and screamed.

Screamed for Lucifer, screamed for Sam, demanding their presence. They would come. They _had_ to come.

He waited, eyes flicking from horizon to horizon for a sense or a glimpse. He shouted again, inwardly with his mind and roaring with a throat that threatened to tear.

_He would come._ _He had to._

His skin crawled, everything alert. When they appeared it was with barely a flurry, a neat flap of wings that made the air fold inwards in a breath and they were standing not three feet away.

They, both, together. Sam’s body, his soul, but hidden behind the might and malice of Lucifer. Who would he be speaking to? Was Sam even awake, aware?

“That was a little rude,” came a sneering voice and Dean looked up from Sam’s body to see an expression he didn’t recognise on Sam’s face. So, Lucifer then. “I was busy, you think you get to demand my presence?”

“Clearly I do, and you did show up after all.” Dean spread his arms. Keeping the spark of power in check, keep it hidden, don’t show your hand. “Couldn’t resist my charms.”

“You’re like a gnat, zip zipping against my eardrum. I only came to shut you up. Did you want something in particular? I’ve told you before, Sam’s not really up to chatting these days, and I don’t feel like letting him out to play.”

Lucifer tried to walk, to circle around him and Dean stepped into his space, shushing his quaking heart that pounded and fretted saying _run, run in the opposite direction._ He wouldn’t run again.

“Thought it was time we had a little one on one, we have business to discuss.”

Lucifer laughed, and it was _Sam’s _laugh that reverberated around the empty air. _Sam’s._ Relaxed in laughter, more ease in his limbs, more life in his eyes. All Sam, so much Sam it hurt, and not enough all at once.

“You know, I’ve let you keep running around all these years to appease Sam’s incessant yelling, but I don’t have the inclination to listen to anything you have to say. You don’t matter, hasn’t that sunk in yet?”

“Oh, you’ll listen this time.” Dean breathed, air into lungs, power into hope. And moved.

A flick, just a wave of his hand and it all fell into place. The final stone pulled forward, lining up with the other eleven and the energy pulsed inwards from their meeting. A crackling, deafening spark of a crash that assaulted his ears and made him squeeze his eyes closed. It wasn’t really a physical sensation -- it was power vibrating at the frequency of the universe compelling him in and in, away from the edge, away from the runes. The matching power inside him reverberated under it and he had to pull himself up straight with all his will; this wasn’t for him.

He opened his eyes to see the forcefield surrounding them, looking like a pale purple-blue electric current spread over the surface of a glass. Iridescent and changing it rolled like oil on water, a complete domed arch over his head, meeting at the carefully placed edges. All twelve stones now lifted up by the force of the spell out of the grass they’d been buried in, glowing and sparking.

Lucifer, Sam, the body of his brother was on the ground, hands clapped over ears and rocking slightly. They were enclosed in a perfect twelve foot wide circle. Nothing could enter, nothing could leave, not while the stones were in place.

Dean crossed quickly to drop at Sam’s side, gripping his arms and hauling him up.

“Sam? Sammy? You gotta wake up, please come on, talk to me while he’s distracted.”

“Hurts,” Sam mumbled, eyes unfocused.

Hearing the sound of Sam’s voice again after so many long years without was a balm and a torture all at once; and this — the first word spoken by his brother’s own soul and not the interloper — cut deeper, and felt richer all at once.

Pain flickered across Sam’s face, his eye twitched. Pain, and something else fighting for control. He sagged. When he straightened, it wasn’t Sam who was staring out, Dean could tell.

He let go like he’d been burned, scooting backward and getting space between them. He pushed back to his feet trying to clamp down on his fear--he knew it wouldn’t be that easy, but he’d still hoped. Hoped it would be over before it really began.

“Who taught you this trick then, little human?” Lucifer snarled. “Who have you got riding around inside you there, finally say yes to Michael?”

Dean licked his lips. Even now, knowing that he’d played his hand, it felt wrong to give up all his cards. He’d keep as many as he could close to his chest.

“Does it matter?”

“I'd like to know who I’m talking to, and which family member I get to make pay for all of this.”

“You’re only talking to me, just me. What I got as a power source ain’t really your concern.”

“Castiel then, I assume. No-one else would dare hitch a ride and not be at the helm. Coo-ee little brother, wanna come out to play with the grown ups?” Lucifer waved his hand like a parent coaxing a child to wave back.

“Yeah, it’s Cas, does that sate your curiosity? But we both know if I want to get through to Sam it has to be me calling the shots. So can we get back to the business at hand?” He wished he could talk to Cas, for a fleeting moment, wished he hadn’t insisted that Cas needed to stay buried and asleep so Dean knew he was in control. He could do with a friendly face, an encouraging word. But he knew it would only be a distraction; his only goal and focus had to be Sam. Even Lucifer couldn’t steal his attention--Sam was the only thing that mattered.

Lucifer scoffed and prowled away, taking Sam with him. Dean ached, ached to get close, to touch that face and hold those hands and _help him_. But he let Lucifer examine the prison, scour the ground for flaws and inconsistencies. He flinched near the barrier, recoiling, and seemed weaker for it. Dean smiled.

Perfect.

“What’s the plan here, Dean old chum? This thing won’t hold for eternity if that’s what you’re thinking. This isn’t a new cage; you can’t keep me here. I’ll get loose, and when I do, I’ll wreak havoc on everything in a hundred mile radius just to spite you. Just to punish you.”

Lucifer turned, giving Dean a clear view of Sam’s face and the way it sneered. Dean breathed out hard through his nose.

“Don’t have to keep you here forever, just long enough for Sam to get the upper hand.”

He shucked off his jacket and rolled his shoulders, loosened them for the fight he knew must be coming. In the distance figures moved into the open space around them. Little dots that grew and moved and buzzed around the field, flattening grass and hauling supplies.

The cavalry, Dean’s cavalry. Here and ready. They’d be first on Lucifer’s hit list if this plan went south, so there were another fifty or so reasons for it not to go south. Within moments there was half a makeshift settlement being built all around them. Closing off the views across the fields. A ways back from the forcefield, leaving a good fifty yard gap of untouched grass, but there they were.

“Huh, well this is a strange phenomenon, isn’t it? What kind of powers have you got in play here?” Lucifer asked and Dean longed to tell Sam all about it, the cleverness of it, the details and minutiae that Sam would eat up in wonder. Instead he stuck to the short version.

“A little time warping, a little dimension shifting, we’re outside the laws of physics… or something to that effect.”

They circled each other, and Sam’s head was lowered with those sharp bright eyes trained on Dean without wavering.

“I’m getting the feeling you don’t want to talk, you want to fight,” Lucifer said.

“I want you to get the hell out of my brother!”

“I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you can’t always get what you want. Tut tut, you should know by now Dean, you can’t beat destiny.”

“He ain’t your friggin’ destiny, he’s mine,” Dean barked, and lunged.

Lucifer was ready, poised, catching the back of Dean’s shirt as he flung his arms out to wrap around Sam’s waist. Lucifer turned with the momentum, pivoting them both; he almost lost his footing and stumbled as Lucifer thrust him away. He stumbled back, turned, caught a fist to the jaw and ducked, landing a punch that jolted Lucifer back half a yard.

Lucifer’s foot dug into the ground, scraping through the grass into the mud and helping him skid to a halt.

“That’s some muscle you’re packing.”

Lucifer shook out the fist that had connected with Dean’s jaw like it was rattled to the bone. Dean barely felt the hit, his body primed to take it and so much more with the comet he had strapped to his soul. Castiel may have been deeply entrenched and asleep in Dean’s mind but his presence offered Dean power and resilience that he’d hardly even tapped.

“How’d a lowly angel of the garrison gather enough juice to take me in a fight?”

“Aww, can’t give away all my secrets now can I? And it’s not like anybody ever said I had to beat you in a fair fight.”

He charged, leaping at the last second to knock Sam to the floor, grappling and rolling with the momentum. They both threw punches, blocking and parrying and jarring each other back and forth across the circle of grass available. Lucifer hissed and scuttled away from the barrier every time he came close and Dean made an effort to knock him there, throw him there, press him close until he weakened more.

He had Sam’s body pinned under his eventually, so familiar, so warm and supple and strong.

“This isn’t how I lose,” Lucifer spat, taking Sam’s mouth and twisting it, glaring hatred out of his eyes that Dean had never seen. “You won’t beat me, only Michael can beat me!”

Dean pressed down harder with his knees and his hands, all the strength within him bearing down until he thought the earth might crack with the force of it.

“Like I said, I’m not trying to beat you, asshole, that’s up to Sam. I’m just here to buy him a chance.”

He looked up briefly and the world outside the circle was glowing with dawn. Tents were set up and night watchmen patrolled at the edges of camp. Dean nodded to himself: it was working. It was all working. The magic of the containment warped time and shielded them from the effects of it. Moments for them were hours on the outside. Hours from his perspective might be days for those around him.

Lucifer arched upward again, trying to throw him off, and Dean raised a hand and brought it down to backhand him across his face. Sam’s face. Smeared with red around the lips now, and a dried drip beneath his nose.

Dean cringed. It had to hurt, and he had to do the hurting, but he didn’t have to like it.

Lucifer was stunned and Dean watched some light change in the eyes. Sam’s eyes, staring blankly, and then focusing with confusion.

“Dean?”

“Yeah, I’ve got you.”

And then he was gone again.

* * *

Time passed slow. And then fast. Blurs of fights and snarls of insults and then long stretches where Sam and Lucifer would go lax and silent, beaten back until Lucifer had energy to regroup.

Dean didn’t waver or falter. He was steadfast, watchful; he couldn’t afford to miss a thing.

Sometimes he let Sam be, curled on the ground or sprawled in the dirt, alone and forlorn. It broke Dean’s heart but if he got too near Lucifer would often surface sooner. He hummed small tunes, things from their childhood of classic rock and aimless radio stations. Snippets of commercial jingles that weaved memories into his mind. Sometimes he thought he saw Sam smile or close his eyes in contentment.

Sometimes not.

Other times he held Sam down as his body thrashed below Dean, fuelled by a will that wasn’t his own. Pinned him and ground his wrists down with hands that only wanted to help him up and set him free. But then, sometimes, he’d get a tiny nod or a grimaced noise of appreciation and he’d squeeze harder, hold tighter, just to feel Sam near.

Hours, it felt like. Hours of fighting 'round and around until he couldn’t see an end in sight. Days passed outside, the sun scudding across the sky in blinks between punches and kicks and elbows.

The ground below them got churned up into a mess of mud and ruined grass, divots and little trenches littering the space in their confines like a pockwork of scars. Dean’s clothes were covered in dirt too, sodden and stiff. He willed himself not to care for comfort or long for clean clothes and a change of pace. He was in this, for as long as it took.

The might of their fighting was astounding, even to Dean who was there and living it. He could feel the power behind every nerve ending just waiting to be released, charged up with the holy grace of an immortal being. He could feel the way Cas’s grace sustained him, even in the moments of stillness — possibly even more so then.

It was solidity, marble or granite or the side of a mountain, carved below his skin. He didn’t tire; he didn’t falter. He could hold position for hours without a spasm of weakness, could grip with the force of the jaw of a lion.

He’d thought it would make him cocky, too sure, too confident. It didn’t. It humbled him. He felt small and weak in comparison to the enormity contained within him. He was just the telescope, the means through which to view the marvel of the universe. He was nothing but a conduit for the power. His body, his ability to fight, was only as good as the strength within him, and luckily he had the strength of the brightest, sharpest, most feeling angel that ever existed.

The camp that had grown around them was impressive, more so because it seemed like it had gone up in a matter of hours from his perspective. He watched with appreciation as they set up further wards and patrols, guarding the crucial spot with more and more surety. The longer this took, the more chance there was of Lucifer’s minions making a move to break him free, and that couldn’t happen.

“Well I see the worker bees have been busy, buzz buzz little humans, flying around like they have some grand purpose. I will squash them all like the bugs they are, and I’ll make you watch,” Lucifer spat. He was sitting on the ground, elbows on knees, face turned out towards the camp. He turned as he spoke and Sam’s eyes flashed yellow.

Dean was tired of his company, tired of his words and taunts. Tired of being without Sam. He didn’t deign to answer.

“Oh, the silent treatment now? That’s real mature, Sam hates it when you do this.”

“You do not get to say his name! You don’t get to talk like you know him!” Dean rose to his feet, surging forward, grabbed for the shirt around Sam’s neck to haul him sideways and throw him to the ground.

“That got a rise out of you,” he chuckled, “and I do know Sam, we’ve shared real estate for years. I know him more than you do.” Lucifer tapped the side of Sam’s head and Dean cringed; he hated thinking what might have been seen, been discovered, what violations Sam had been through.

He shook Lucifer once and backed away. “Screw you, you’re just the world’s biggest bully.”

Turning his back was a mistake; he heard the movement before he felt the body slammed into his back. He half turned but still got a faceful of dirt for his trouble when they hit the ground. They rolled, one over the other, and Sam’s hands were everywhere, gripping and clawing and dragging over Dean’s body.

His shirt tore open, the collar ripped away, his undershirt rose up his midriff and the sleeves were half removed from the body. Pinned beneath Sam, he saw Sam’s eyes go wide when the design on his chest was revealed.

Gold paint laid over his heart, his ribs, down towards his stomach.

“What is this?” Sam said.

Dean shrugged as best he could with his arms caught in the strong grip. Sam’s hands moved fast, pushing his sleeves aside, until the intricate pattern of overlapping circles and sigils down his arms come into view.

“Wanna see the rest?” he asked.

Sam nodded.

He scooted out from under Sam’s knees, got to his feet and turned, lifting his shirt up his back to show the giant pentagram design drawn there, each point embellished with a careful enochian word or phrase. Several extra designs overlaid in the centre to form a web of gold.

He knew it was shining, glinting in the light, because he’d moved and checked it all out in the mirror when the artistic drawings had been done. It was iridescent and it wouldn’t rub off for just anything, not unless he willed it to.

Sam’s mouth was agape when Dean looked over his shoulder, hand resting lightly on Dean’s back. His face shifted and Lucifer growled. “So this is how you’re matching me with strength?”

Dean grinned, wide and with glee. “Didn’t think I came in here without a plan did you? Tut tut, I thought you knew me better than that.”

The spell work was connected to the forcefield around them. As it was powered up, its strength and energy became active and siphoned into Dean, through Cas’s angelic nature. Every second that it drained and fought against Lucifer, it built up and helped Dean.

“Fuck! You little asshole!” Lucifer scrambled forward, half flying towards him, and Dean pivoted on the spot and flung him into the barrier. He jerked against the semi-invisible wall, shaking like it was electrocuting him.

Served him right.

He dropped like a stone and Dean hurried forward to pull Sam away from the edge, back to the safe ground in the middle of the dome. Sam was near unconscious and Dean stroked the hair away from his face, cleaned the blood from his skin with his shirt sleeve, and sat by his side holding his hand.

* * *

It changed, after that. The fighting became more chaotic, more frenzied, but Lucifer’s finesse had gone, he had no plan or foresight, no ability to get the upper hand. He kicked and flailed, and Dean always pushed him back down.

His hands were still dangerous though, trying to claw at Dean’s face or snap him out of existence with his super archangel mojo. Dean found himself clamping down on them, batting them away, always having to be alert for some new twist of an attack.

There were other things here that could help him, things he’d buried within the confines of the circle before the magic was set into motion. Things he could dig up. He didn’t want to, but he knew he must. When Sam seemed to be out cold, though his eyes were open, he sighed and got to work.

At the twelve o’clock point of the placed stones he found the first spot, two hand widths in, where he’d buried a small foldable shovel. He dug for it with his fingers, mud coating the underside of his nails and staining his palms. Once it was out the rest was easy.

Two angel blades at point six.

A flask of holy oil at nine.

And more of the sticky golden residue he had painted onto his own body in a small pot at point three.

He laid them out on the ground in a row and looked them over. He could have put anything in here, water, food, clean clothes, relics and mementos that might have gotten through to Sam. But this is what he chose. Ever the practical, nothing emotional, nothing for comfort. If they were going to win this war, he had to be ruthless and determined and these were the things that might be needed.

Hi shirt was a lost cause and he abandoned it, torn and snagged, distorted to where it really wasn’t worth wearing and he wondered if Sam seeing the marks and designs on his skin would remind him Dean was in control, that he had this, that they’d get out of it.

Hearing Sam muttering, he turned and found him wide-eyed, staring blankly up at the heavens. He was flinching, wincing in some unseen pain or distress. Dean knelt beside him, gripped his shoulders, snapped his fingers in front of Sam’s face to get his attention. He got no response.

“Stop, stop, please, nononono,” Sam spoke quietly, and shuddered, and then screamed.

“Sam? Sam!” Dean straddled him, holding him down when he thrashed and bucked, tossing his head. “What are you doing to him?”

Sam’s scream cut off abruptly and his face broke into a cunning smile. “You know where he thinks he is? Half the time he has no idea I broke his fall and clawed back out of that pit before it closed. He thinks he’s in the cage… with me, just me.” Lucifer winked and then Sam was back, writhing and yelling, tears falling while he fought for breath between heaving painful gasps.

Dean cupped Sam’s face and tried to soothe him, fighting back his own tears. Sam was being tortured, right in front of him, and maybe it was all in Sam’s head but that didn’t mean it wasn’t real. For Sam it was the only reality he knew.

“Sammy, Sammy stop you’re not there, you didn’t go to the cage. You’re out, you can be free, come on man, Sammy! Wake up!” In a fit of panic Dean slapped him across the face, wincing at the force that rocketed Sam’s head sideways. Sam choked on his scream, and coughed, blinked, and looked up at Dean with eyes full of fear.

“You can’t be here,” Sam whispered. “You have to get out, go, go! Dean, he’ll notice you soon, get out!”

“I’m not leaving you, Sam--look around, look where we are. This isn’t hell.”

“A trick, it’s just a trick,” Sam said, eyes rolling in his head as he convulsed and drew a shaky breath. “Please make it stop, I’m sorry, okay, I’m sorry, please.” Sam yelled again, breathy and choking on his own spit as his neck arched, forcing his head backwards.

Dean cradled him, lifting him up so he could breathe easier and be more comfortable.

“You can win this, you can beat him! You never made it to the cage. He flew you out of there and he’s been walking around inside your skin for years. He’s just using torture as a way to keep you locked up in your own head.”

He waited for the words to sink in, for them to mean something, but Sam was gone. Lost to pain and confusion, half unconscious, and leaving Dean with nothing but memories.

Stull Cemetery, Kansas, May 13th 2010. The day the whole plan went to shit. Sam took Lucifer in, and found himself overpowered. Dean watched Sam vanish into thin air with a smug look on his face that wasn’t his own, leaving Dean faithless and desperate, despair eating through his heart like he’d never lived any other way.

He called Lucifer to the gravesite, wanting one last showdown, one last chance. At the very least one last look before he never saw Sam again. It went about as well as expected, fists and fury and a fight that Dean couldn’t win, a bond that Sam wouldn’t break.

Sam burst free, with Dean’s blood on his knuckles and pain in his eyes. Clawing back to the surface, he drew himself away. They didn’t even get a goodbye, not a moment to savour the victory, or the loss.

Sam promised he’d make it right, and he did. He did his bit, did the only thing he could; he opened the portal, he threw himself and Michael into it, and Dean’s heart broke.

It broke and then it shattered with dashed hope when seconds later Sam’s form came flying back out of the black abyss. Angelic wings spread and soaring he shot back into the world of the living with Lucifer’s yellow eyes staring wildly from his face. He crushed the Impala with one curl of his fist, destroying the only home they’d ever had, winked at Dean and then disappeared in a flurry of wing beats; left Dean just in time for the portal to close, never to be reopened.

Then the whole _world_ went to shit. Demons walked, angels flew, there was battle on every front. And Dean, alone, lost, gathered up the dregs of humanity still primed to fight for no other reason than his brother was being held hostage, and he had to put an end to it.

It wasn’t hope that kept him moving all the years that followed, not really. It was vengeance. It was anger burning bright as he watched his brother's body being used to destroy the world he had fought so hard for. It couldn’t stand.

Dean became a hollow version of himself, worn thin with years of strain, but in this one thing he knew he was always right. Sam had to be freed; it was the only way to end it, even if the pieces of this broken world — or his broken brother — couldn’t be put back together.

Sam’s outbursts got more frequent as Dean sat vigil by his side. He got to hear Sam’s voice again, truly his voice and not Lucifer’s, but it was like acid in a wound in Dean’s heart. Sam begged, pleaded, murmured apologies and proposed hopeful bargains, tossed and thrashed and screamed. Over and over.

There were whole conversations Dean heard only one half of, and he knew Lucifer was toying with him. Knew Sam didn’t have to be saying these things with actual words, with his lips and teeth and tongue, Lucifer could have had the entire conversation inside Sam’s head. The only reason Dean could hear them was because Lucifer wanted him to.

He watched as two days passed outside their confines, the sun shooting across the sky in what felt like only mere hours for him. Dawn broke, midday was reached, and then the darkness encroached again without Dean even feeling the need to change positions.

Sam had gone quiet, his eyes blank as dark pools, lips barely quivering. Dean sighed and traced the lines on Sam’s palm, the skin so smooth and unbroken now. No calluses, no hardened nubs from weapons or fights. These hands hadn’t been used in years, not for anything physical. The destruction they’d wrought had been orchestrated to be carried out from a distance, like flicking specks of dust from the surface of the world, like nothing was more permanent than a flea.

Dean wondered what horrors Sam’s eyes had seen. How many deaths? How much damage? How many battles? Was Sam even aware of any of it? Did he glimpse snatches of the world burning before he was shunted back into a prison inside his own mind? He tried to imagine what it would be like, trapped inside your own head as someone else wrecked the world with your face and could barely begin to scrape the surface of the agony of it.

He wanted Sam back, wanted to save him. But could he shield Sam from everything that had been done? Could he protect him from those who were, and would always be, out for his blood just because a monster had worn his face for a time?

He brought Sam’s fingers to his lips and held them there, not a kiss, not really. Just a touch, just an ache of longing.

Sam’s eyelids fluttered at the touch, his breath hitched. He blinked, and turned toward Dean.

Like a fairytale. Like a miracle.

“Dean…” he whispered, voice raw from screaming.

“I’m here.” Dean sat forward, still clutching Sam’s hand to his face, pressing it against his cheek. He used his other hand to mirror the touch, placing his palm against Sam’s face.

“Don’t stop,” Sam said, slurred.

“What? Which thing?”

“It helps,” Sam twitched his fingers weakly, a barely-there tap against Dean’s cheek. “Can feel it.”

“Okay, alright. I’ve got you. Do you know where we are?”

Sam shook his head.

“Is Lucifer… is he… do you have control?”

Sam’s face scrunched in pain and he shook his head again. “He’s weaker, but I can’t, he won’t let me-” Sam flinched, groaned in pain.

“Alright, hey hey, don’t think about it, focus on me. Yeah, there you go, just look at me.” Dean smiled, and it was tight and forced but Sam relaxed again.

The ground beneath them was damp, mud soaking into both their clothes, but Dean didn't care. This moment, this was progress, this was everything he had hoped for. Sam just needed time to gain the upper hand, to get stronger again. He could give Sam that.

“Wanna hear a story?” Dean asked.

Sam swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. His mouth twitched in almost a smile. “Yeah.”

“I met this guy, right, huge fella, taller than you and twice as wide. He had this mangy little dog that was always yapping around him, snapped at everything it could get its teeth into — you’d have loved it as usual — anyway, he headed up this gang of bikers and he let me roll with them for a few weeks… ”

He spun Sam several tales. Told him things he’d missed; Bobby’s birthday when he got so blind drunk he had regaled an entire bar with show tunes for an hour and a half before anyone could pull him from the tiny stage. Cas, learning how to swim and insisting his terrible form was because his true size made him far too heavy to be buoyant. Nothing about the apocalypse, or the terror the world had been caught in. Nothing that might spark alarm bells, or cause him to worry. He needed to be centered, calm.

They tried periodically to get Sam to say the words _get out, leave, I don’t want you here, I revoke my consent _and every time Lucifer came screaming to the surface before even a syllable had been finished. He’d drag Sam back into despair, forcing him to experience some graphic torture or other — as real for Sam as his time with Dean. Dean could guess far too well what that torture might be, and he steeled himself against his own barrage of memories, willing them away to focus on Sam. He was no stranger to pain, but seeing Sam experience it was more excruciating than anything he’d endured before.

So Dean went back to what he knew. The physical, the immediate, the things that couldn’t be ignored.

He rubbed warmth into Sam’s fingers and arms, and moved his legs so they wouldn’t cramp. Human things, ordinary things. Not anything he really had to worry about with Lucifer as a giant lightning bolt of energy running through Sam’s veins, but it seemed good to keep Sam grounded in his body. To make him aware of himself and the physical act of existing in the world.

When Dean tried to roll him over to put his own jacket down beneath Sam's back, Sam moaned, gasping and violently shaking his head.

“Sam what’s wrong?”

“Hurts, don’t pull me, the chain…”

“There’s no chain, Sam, there’s nothing there. Look.” He forcibly turned Sam’s head, watching him blink and frown in confusion.

“But the hook…. through my shoulder blade? It was… it’s…”

“Just an illusion. He’s making you think he’s got you in the pit, and he doesn’t. _I have you._”

A tear slid from Sam’s eye, tracing down his cheek bone to settle into his hair. “Don’t let him take me back,” he said, desperately, horrified.

“Tell me what you need.”

“Touch me. Keep me here, whatever it takes. Anything, do anything. Please.”

So Dean did.

He started small, hoping it would be enough. He cradled Sam’s face and whispered promises against Sam’s lips. Almost kisses and nearly there caresses. He dragged his hands through Sam’s hair, scratching at the scalp underneath, brushing it with sure and steady strokes of his fingers. Sam sighed and turned his head into the touch, but his face was still screwed up in pain, eyes long lost to some other world.

Dean straddled him, pressing on his chest until Sam gasped and looked up. Sam nodded. Dean framed his ribs with his hands and dragged his fingernails against the fabric of Sam’s stained shirt.

“Stay with me.”

“Hold me,” Sam ground out.

Dean caught him in a bruising kiss, biting on his lip, sucking on his tongue. He stole the air right from Sam’s mouth until Sam was gasping, panting hard and jagged. Their hot breath mingled and Dean wanted to cry, to scream, to jump up and celebrate. It was everything he’d missed and everything that was wrong because there was something so profoundly different about it. Something that wasn’t reciprocated, as if Sam was holding back.

He gripped Sam’s face between his palms and shook him lightly, “You holding out on me?”

“He can’t have you. I don’t want him to hurt you.”

Dean thought about it, parsed out the meaning. “Lucifer? He’s not in control now is he?”

Sam shook his head. “But…”

“No buts, you stay with me.”

Dean pushed Sam’s shirt aside, mouthed down his throat and let his hands explore Sam’s chest. He shoved Sam’s clothes aside and bit at Sam’s nipples, dragging one then other between his teeth to make Sam hiss.

“Dean, not here,” he gasped.

“Why not?”

“Lucifer…”

“He already knows, and I don’t care what he thinks.”

Sam cringed, turning his face away, trying to roll over and escape Dean’s touches.

“Sam, hey,” Dean snapped fingers in front of Sam’s face and when that didn’t get a response he forced Sam’s face back around to meet his own. “Decency be damned--if this brings you pleasure instead of pain, I’ll do it.”

Sam’s eyes trailed to look past the shifting pattern of the magical dome to the camp beyond. “Someone will see.”

“Yes.”

Sam shook his head. “It’s bad enough that this, that I… they can’t know about us too.”

“Who do you think is out there?”

“I don’t know.”

“Exactly. You don’t know, so who cares? Their opinions don’t matter, but they’re my men and they can like it or lump it. Makes no difference to me.”

He dragged Sam by the hips, pulling him closer. “We can be together right here, right now, no more waiting.”

Sam’s face shifted into a lecherous grin, “He’s all shy you know, doesn’t want to get his dick out for a crowd. Plus I may have made him think he liked being fucked by me, that probably does kill his mood,” Lucifer said.

“You bastard.”

“Well it does come with the territory.”

“Let me speak to him!” Dean yelled.

“Nah, I think I’ll keep you chatting, let Sam stew a bit. You know how he gets all dark and brooding.”

“You make him like that. You could just let him go.” Dean loathed the note of desperation in his voice but it was there, pleading.

Lucifer split Sam’s face into a snarl and snapped his teeth, “Never! I’ll never let him go. He made this deal, it’s his cross to bear now, however much you hate it. He’s mine, he will always be mine. Give up the dream, Dean, you won’t have him.”

Dean took one breath as the words cut deep and then wailed on him with his fists, and all Lucifer did was laugh, until, finally, he was left with a bloodied brother staring at him with wild eyes.

“Fuck, sorry, Sam, I’m sorry.”

“He does that, riles you up. It’s like his special skill, I don’t take it personally.” He spat blood onto the ground. “He doesn’t want us to be close; he thinks it’ll make me stronger.”

Dean did his best to read the look on Sam’s face, hoping he still understood it enough after all these years. “Is that you telling me to do it, even though you don’t want it?”

Sam set his jaw and nodded. “I’m gonna beg you to stop, I’m gonna hate it, because that’s what he’s made of me.” Sam cut off with a groan and shudder, wincing and curling in on himself in phantom pain. “Do it. Dean! Do it!”

Dean didn’t wait to be told twice; his mind was already made up. Whatever it took, that was the plan. Everything else be damned.

He took a second, a moment, to appreciate the form of the man he’d missed for so long. The sight of Sam, laid open for him, stirred something deep, longing rising to the surface. He cupped Sam’s face and smiled, watching Sam looking back. He played with Sam’s hair, pulling a little, the way he used to like. Sam smiled. Dean finger-walked his hands across Sam’s chest, and twined their fingers together, leaning in to breathe the same air.

He looked down the length of their bodies; at the shoes and dress pants Sam had on, to his own scruffy attire, amused to see such a stark difference side by side. Desperate for the time when he might see Sam in his own clothes again, looking like the brother he knew.

He was distracted; it was a bad move.

Hands shoved him off, threw him with a force that made his bones shake and his brain rattle in his skull. He sprawled, stunned, on the ground, and blinked up at Sam’s snarling face.

“You can’t beat me with tenderness, boy.”

So, then. Not like that.

* * *

It took longer than he would have liked to subdue Lucifer again. Trying to parry and block, shirtless now, made him feel more vulnerable and he had to remind himself he wasn’t. He wasn’t weak, or near to failing. He had this. When he finally knocked Lucifer back to the ground, Sam’s head snapped back and collided with the ground with a sickening blow.

Dean had himself on top of the writhing body in seconds; Lucifer struggled below him and Dean struck him across the face. He gave up on any illusion that he could do this and not hurt Sam, so he didn’t hold back. Sam’s head rolled with weakness, and he groaned.

“S’me, Dean it’s me.”

“Tell me something, talk to me.”

Sam lifted a weary hand and touched the back of his head, coming away with bloodied fingers. “Why isn’t he healing me?”

“Not sure, I think he’s struggling just to stay in control enough so that you can’t kick him out. Not enough power left for much else.”

“Better keep going then, show me what you’re made of,” Sam said weakly, a trickle of blood running from his mouth that he touched tentatively with his tongue. “No point stopping now, if it’s working.”

“That a challenge?” Dean asked. “You know I can’t resist a challenge.”

Softness hadn’t been useful, not here, not like this. So Dean got rough, he got creative, and he got back to the business of disarming his brother of every other distraction.

Hands he roved over Sam’s flesh, mouth he used to nip along in their wake. Tongue and urgency and weight he pushed against Sam in a wild frenzy, uncaring how gentle — or not — he was being. For now, this was their best plan. Just keep Sam at the surface, cognisant and aware. Let the magic do the rest; even Lucifer shouldn’t be able to hold out against it forever.

But how long would it be before that moment came to pass?

Shocks of pain and discomfort alarmed Sam but kept him present too. He was bruising swiftly, more blooming atop the old all across his arms where Dean gripped him into immobility, and across his face where he’d been hit so many times. Even his neck, where Dean had strangled him into submission.

Dean was sick with it, but it was working and Sam begged him not to stop. It felt like lead in his stomach to do this, but he was all in and that meant ignoring every instinct he might otherwise have had.

His jeans and boots weren’t comfortable either now that they were caked in dirt, but he barely felt it. The angel power was so strong that mortal things were negligible. He existed inside his body but he barely needed to consider it; it wasn’t of concern.

Sam, on the other hand, seemed to be feeling his body more and more. He was growing weaker in increments, and though he still had plenty of urgency behind his attacks, his wounds weren’t healing and his sense of self was increasing. Dean took advantage wherever he could.

He ripped the rest of their clothes off, pulling Sam’s shoes and dress pants down while he kicked and thrashed and then went limp once he was naked. Dean covered him with his body, blocking him from the sight of any eye that might be looking — human or otherwise.

Sam had his eyes squeezed tightly closed, breath coming in little jumps. Dean was sitting on the very edge of fear and anticipation, trying to hold himself together when all he wanted to do was break apart. He hadn’t imagined it would be like this, so open, so painful. So public, if anyone was looking. He’d given instructions not to watch, no more than was necessary for guarding the spot, but people were curious, people were _people_.

But still, it was Sam. Sam’s body, Sam’s responses, Sam’s eyes and lips and hands. Everything he’d missed and craved and thought might be lost forever. He couldn’t deny he wanted this; on a carnal, base level it was all he wanted.

“Been so long, Sam, but you still remember, don’t you?” Dean dug fingernails into Sam’s skin, scraping lightly in little jolts to make Sam twitch. “Still remember how I can make you scream? How good we can be?”

Sam nodded and shook his head and groaned when Dean straddled him. He wouldn’t be thrown off this time, he would hold on for all he was worth. Sam opened his eyes and they shone with tears, desperate, wild and worried and blown with arousal too.

“I’ve got you, it’s me all the way. Just feel me.”

“Cas?” Sam choked out.

“Locked away, not awake or aware. He’s not watching, I promise. I have his power, but he’s not here unless I give the signal. You and me, that’s all that matters.”

Sam wriggled, letting his hands come up to brace on Dean’s chest. Dean twitched with the uncomfortable closeness of hands that had been trying to tear him apart since this began, but he turned his head and kissed the knuckles all the same.

“Gonna ease you into it, it’s going to be fine.”

“Just want this to be over,” Sam said, face scrunched in pain. “Please.”

The word and the despair spurred Dean on, lit a fire under his smouldering desire and for all the right reasons and just a few wrong ones he made short work of forcing Sam’s body to respond. He used his mouth and his hands and his words and he chivvied Sam along the road towards arousal, pretending he didn’t care that Sam wouldn’t look and wouldn’t reciprocate.

Sam’s skin was a patchwork of purples and yellows, littered with cuts and scrapes and the tapestry of it all was startling. Dean had done that to him. Dean had caused it. _No_, he thought, anger surging, _Lucifer. Lucifer had done this, just like he’d wounded the world._

He worked around the network or sore spots, lightly kissing each with his lips and licking the malty earth off the worst of the lacerations. He murmured and hummed against Sam’s skin, nuzzling with his nose and gripping with his hands. He made Sam heat up, moment by moment, and every touch sent blood pulsing down to his own cock until it was heavy between his legs. Until he craved more.

But he wanted to do this right. He wanted to make it last, make it so mind-meltingly sublime Sam would have no choice but to succumb.

He learned in increments, in tiny stages and careful observation, when Sam was with him and when he wasn’t. Sam’s eyes would go glassy, lose a little light, and in the moments right before Lucifer surfaced they would flare ever so slightly. He had no desire to be intimate with devil, so he practiced finding where the line was and how to rip Sam back to the surface.

Pain is what did it. Pain made Sam gasp and come back to the forefront, pain kept him centred. Agony made him spasm and cry out and _be there_. Dean would pinch, press on bruises, use his teeth to scrape and bite and make Sam thrash.

“Don’t go leavin’ me again, you stay right here,” he said, growling.

Sam nodded. Swallowed. “Take me, make it… make me feel it.”

Dean circled hands around Sam’s neck and squeezed, just a little. Tilted Sam’s face up with the pressure beneath his chin. “Tell me what you see.”

He didn’t give Sam much pause to breathe, or speak, squeezing his throat and kissing him softly, stealing the air between his lips like the sweetest nectar.

“You, you’re on me,” Sam groaned.

“And?”

“Bars, so red. Red and black and… Dean! Get off, get off! No, you _can’t.”_

He gripped tighter, made Sam retch, clenched his jaw at the brutality but didn’t stop. “No. Not there Sam, we’re not in hell.”

Sam’s eyes refocused, and he drew a shaky breath as Dean relinquished his hold. Sam’s hand twitched in the grass though, a tiny spark out of the corner of Dean’s eye. He moved before Lucifer could strike or take control, shifting Sam’s hand so it was caught under his knee. Leaning his weight on it made Sam wince but he nodded.

“Don’t wanna hurt you,” Sam whispered.

“You won’t, I won’t let you.”

“Dean, he’s done such terrible things.” Sam’s eyes welled with tears and Dean placed his palm over them, leaning down to whisper into Sam’s ear.

“I know, I know, so let’s finish it.”

Sam struggled and snarled _no, _and Dean leaned back to slap him. Panting into the dirt below him, Sam kept his head turned aside.

“Get off me,” he croaked. “Get off!”

“Not until it’s over!”

“I don’t want to, I don’t, I don’t, he’s _watching_. He can _see. _Let me go, let me have some dignity. Please!” he looked at Dean with watery eyes but his mouth set firm.

“I don’t care what he sees—be here with me.”

He kissed Sam harder, drove a tongue between the parting of his mouth and sucked. He slid hands down Sam’s waist to his hips and lower, brushing and then clawing at the dips and swells of Sam’s muscles.

Sam tried to shake his head but moaned wantonly into Dean’s mouth as Dean kissed him and then pulled away to pant against his lips.

“I promised, you agreed. I know you want me to, if this is the only way. Beautiful Sam, my Sam, no matter what he says.”

“You don’t know what he says,” Sam said, voice broken, cracking, shattering.

“Tell me.” Dean worked away from Sam’s face, trailing bruising kisses down his throat and plucking at his nipples with one hand. He wouldn’t tire of this, not ever, not in any way. Physically he was sustained by grace, and emotionally he could drink Sam up for a lifetime and never grow bored. If that’s what it took… if it was the only way to keep Lucifer from the world, it wasn’t much of a sacrifice to make.

Time shuddered past outside their small confine, a day passing in the time it took for Dean to map the planes of Sam’s chest with his teeth and tongue and nails. They would look frozen to the outside, barely moving. Two figures splayed on the ground, one atop the other. Dean shook the thought away, digging deeper into the well of power within his body, holding to the surety of it. This was all that could ever matter. Him and Sam and the tenuous hope of relief.

“He said you don’t care, you never cared,” Sam ventured, what felt like hours later. “You didn’t come for me, you let me go.”

Dean yanked on his hair until they could look each other in the eye. “Never. You were gone and I didn’t stop looking for a second. I would never leave you to him.”

“I’ve been alone with him… for eons.”

“No!” Dean growled.

“That’s how it feels!” Sam pushed at him, hands torn free from the grip containing them, and they had Dean by the throat in seconds.

Dean didn’t technically need to breathe, but the constriction around his throat went against every survival instinct he had. He bashed his forearms into the solid weight of Sam’s, clawed at fingers, until eventually giving in and burying fist after fist into Sam’s ribs.

When Sam relented, spitting curses. Dean moved swiftly and hooked one of his legs over his shoulder, bending Sam at the knee until he was half lifted off the ground.

“Even if you’d made it to hell I wouldn’t have left it alone. I would have found a way. It’s what you wanted and I let you try, but it wouldn’t have been the end of it.”

“Dean, no more.”

“Why? Why not, Sam?” Dean thundered, circling a fist around Sam’s balls and closing it slowly but surely. “Why shouldn’t I force you to feel what’s real? I want you _back._ The world needs you back.”

“Stop, just stop, it’s too much.” But Sam’s eyes met his as he said it and he shook his head and Dean stroked one finger up the length of Sam’s cock and Sam nodded. They could communicate like this, without words if needed. Sam would show him what he really wanted.

“It’s not enough, it’s never enough of you,” Dean said, and then he put his hands to work. He spat and he drooled his tongue around Sam’s balls and up his cock, made him twitch in pleasure, made him keen.

“I don’t want—” Sam started to say.

“You do.”

“I do, I need, Dean, I need. Please.”

He obliged, cupping Sam’s ass cheeks and squeezing, kneading them. Made Sam punch out tiny breaths and little wailing noises.

When Sam contorted, a silent scream tearing his mouth apart, Dean swore and shimmied upwards, dropping Sam’s leg and cruelly twisting both nipples at once. He dug his fingernails into the soft skin around Sam’s eyes, dipped his fingers into the swollen mottled marks on Sam’s collar bone.

“Hurts,” Sam moaned again, a repeat of his very first word to Dean in years. Dean refused to let it be the last.

They’d never expected to find an answer that didn’t run on pure dumb luck, or a possibility that might actually work. And yet here was Cas, turning up with his coat tails flapping and knowledge burning a hole in his pocket. Potential, hope. A way to Sam. A way to save him and to stop everything.

“It would be not dissimilar to the warding on the Cage, as far as we can tell. Crowley didn’t know much but he did know this.” Cas said.

The beginnings of the plan were being formed, right there, in a tent in the middle of nowhere with nothing holding the group together but anger and gritty resolve; a beacon was shining out of Cas’s face and Dean didn’t dare believe it.

“So… it’ll hold? Forever?”

“Not exactly. Not… not quite.”

And that was the rub. Up top, with weather and changing climates and eroding soil, and the fact that a giant glowing half-orb would be a huge calling card for Lucifer’s followers to find and risk freeing him, meant it couldn’t be an end-game plan.

Dean was glad, secretly, privately. He didn’t want to lock Sam up and throw away the key. Whatever they did would only be a temporary measure. It could hold him until something else could be done. Dean could be that something else, maybe; he could turn it around.

“So these runes, they’re fool proof once someone’s inside?” An idea took shape and he had to ask. “No matter how rage-fuelled Lucifer got he couldn’t weaken them?”

“No, think of them like a tuning fork. They're attuned to the frequency of archangel grace and like magnets they would repel each other. He’d be powerless against the barrier, and unable to alter or touch whatever we carved them onto. If we could also bespell the area around the runes, it might even draw energy away from Lucifer, weakening him.”

“That’s perfect then, we’ll just talk to Sam through this barrier and get him to kick Lucifer out. He just needs time, I know it. He did it at the cemetery, it’s not his fault it didn’t last--if he’d expelled the guy instead of trying to contain and control him it would’ve worked, I know it.”

Cas looked awkward. Shifty. “What Cas? Spit it out. You don’t think I can reach Sam?”

“The barrier, it would be… impenetrable. Sam wouldn’t be able to hear you.”

And that was a flaw in the idea, but one he only contemplated for a moment. “So, fine, then I’ll go inside with him.”

“Lucifer would snap your neck in an instant. And I know you’ll say that’s an acceptable loss if it saved Sam but you might not even get that chance, and then where would we be?”

“Saving Sam has to be possible, it _has_ to be. If we’re trapping Lucifer he’ll be _right there_, we have to try something.”

“An angel could -- perhaps -- survive, I could…”

“Nope, no deal. It has to be me, I’m the one who can get through to him. You’ll just anger Lucifer more, and that will only make him stronger and Sam weaker.”

“It can’t be you, Dean!”

“It has to be me. So… maybe I just need a little boost?”

And that’s how he found himself, ready to be the golden goose so to speak. Housing their best friend inside himself like a Russian Babushka doll, ready to pop out when needed.

The sigils on his body had been Bobby’s idea, approved by Cas. Delicate symbols, matching, resonating, and complimenting the ones they carved onto the stones. He’d grow in power and strength the longer his body was a conduit for the frequency that would repel an archangel, one mirroring the other, a closed circuit that was amped up by the earth, the air, the metal in his blood; base elements that worked together in tandem

“Remember Dean,” Cas said, the last time they spoke before he jumped Dean’s bones. “These markings, they’re not at the whims of time or the elements. They’re connected to your life blood, and your will. Just as the rocks can’t be altered by Lucifer, neither can these. They will fortify you for as long as can keep yourself alive and undamaged, and they won’t ever fade… not for as long as it takes.”

“I know,” he said back. “Stay the course, stay focused, don’t wish them away. And hey, the longer it takes, the weaker Lucifer gets right? So that’s good for me.”

“We think, but none of this is certain.”

“Don’t go chicken on me now! Come on, have a little faith.”

Faith, hope, desperate foolhardy belief, and a tenuous plan based on rumour and cobbled together magic. That’s all they had, and it was still better than any solution they’d come up with in years. He didn’t dare let himself consider that he might be the weakest part of their plan. That his words and his voice and his connection with Sam would be what held their fates in the balance. Bobby, Gabriel, even Crowley, would work tirelessly once Lucifer was contained to find a way to get the cage open and drop kick his ass back inside.

But his fate, his and Sam’s? If Dean couldn’t do it right, no magic in the world would save them.

He started at the top of Sam’s body again and worked methodically and insistently down, down, down. He wasn’t gentle, and it wasn't easy, he just worked Sam over and drew him back up to the light. Everything from the press of his fingertips to the power of his grip was infused with the strength of an angel, and Sam had that strength, too, but Dean was control, and he scratched and bit and bruised and interspersed it all with the fevered touch of desire.

“Come on, come back.” he growled at Sam’s thigh, nipping the skin with his teeth.

Sam gasped, his head shaking side to side. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Do you have a better one?”

“No.”

“Sammy. Sam. Sammy.” The word was a prayer, a hope. He nuzzled it against Sam’s skin, under the delicate weight of his balls, kissed it into the shaft of Sam’s cock.

Sam was thickening up, whatever energy left to him driving downwards, as he filled up nicely under Dean’s hand.

“Gettin’ weaker. You should stop.”

“Who’s getting weaker?” Dean asked, pausing, lifting up to see Sam’s face. “You, or him?”

“Both, I’m not sure, Dean I’m not sure…”

“You think we should stop now, when it’s working?”

Sam huffed, squeezing his eyes closed in pain, and Dean squeezed the hand holding Sam’s balls to match. With a shout Sam rocketed upwards, and his hand flew out, clawing for Dean’s face.

Dean batted it aside, throwing it the ground, pinned Sam again and kissed. And kissed. And waited.

Sam muttered but it wasn’t to him, and Dean swore.

“Leave him alone you bastard!”

“Why should I? You’ve done all the work for me, he’s all riled up and primed for the taking. It’s not my fault he thinks it’s me doing this to him.”

Dean rocked backwards as the horror of the words sank in. “No.” No, he refused, _refused_, to let this be used against them. He careened across the small space, hefting an angel blade in his hand and dropped back on top of Sam in a rush. He pressed the tip of the blade onto Sam’s shoulder until it broke the skin and the shine of blue-white grace glowed brightly. It shone from inside his brother and he laughed darkly to himself; there would be no denying this.

Sam’s eyes went wide.

“Feel that?” he asked, voice pitched low.

Sam nodded. Dean sliced again, shallow but longer. “You’ve got an angel inside you, that’s why it burns like that. Can you feel it?”

“Fuck, painful.” Sam tried to crawl away, his limbs flopping uselessly on the ground.

“You can feel the atoms parting, the energy building behind each cut, right? Focus on it.”

He slid the knife again, across Sam’s chest above the nipple, and blood welled up, followed by the curl of light.

“How? How are you doing this to me?” Sam looked horrified at himself, and at Dean. “Stop!”

“Not until you listen! Listen to what’s going on inside that body of yours. Lucifer is in there with you, he’s not in another vessel torturing you. You are not separate souls trapped in hell. He can’t pretend this isn’t happening, he can’t turn his grace into something else. _That’s_ what’s true.”

“Did I say yes, again?” Sam’s tears bubbled up into a laugh.

“Not again, don’t you remember? Think, Sam, really think. What have we been doing?”

The sword was a good weight in his hand and he held tightly, waiting for Sam to answer. It felt like an eternity, where he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t wait any longer and yet still time was paused.

“You got me.” Sam’s cloudy eyes brightened, filling with hope. “Been here, with you, for… for days? You got me!”

“Yes, yes! Hold onto that!” Dean pressed his forehead to Sam’s and exhaled slowly, letting his relief flood outwards, hoping it would pass to Sam too.

Something coiled beneath him, and he registered it in a blink, before he was flung backwards. His borrowed wings unfurled and caught him mid air and he barrelled back to the yellow eyes of Lucifer and the cringing look on Sam’s face.

“Never,” Lucifer snarled, and Sam’s contorted face was wild. Evil. “Back off, little brother, leave this vessel to me.”

“Dean!” Sam broke through, halting the thrust of Lucifer’s hand. Dean kicked the hand aside and tried to spin them around. Three hundred and sixty degrees they careened one way, and then back, grappling, as Dean tried to keep Lucifer from touching his head and burning both him and Cas to smithereens. Up and tottering over they neared the barrier which fizzed and crackled at their proximity. Lucifer hissed, and he tried to snap his fingers at Dean. He caught the hand and held on until he thought Sam’s wrist might pop from the strain.

“Give it up, Luci, you ain’t winning this thing.”

Sam’s other hand tried to snap too, to disintegrate Dean with one jolt of his fingers. They almost made it but the crack was weak and barely landed, and all it did was make Dean shudder as he felt the wards on his back and chest absorb what should have been a fatal blow. It smarted and he winced and sucked in a breath, felt weaker and stumbled backwards.

Sam looked shocked, watching Dean’s chest, and he looked down to see the still-faint glow in the sigils painted there, as they slowly faded back to a human gold.

“What was that?” Sam asked, quietly.

“Came with protection, still burned a bit though.” Inwardly he was trying to recall if there was a limit to the amount of magic his protection could absorb. Would it hold indefinitely? What guesses and estimations had they made, and which ones would be true?

Sam was stock still, one hand outstretched, the other clinging to Dean’s shoulder. Dean looked up, seeing the clarity in Sam’s eyes, and smiled a little. “You back with me?”

“He’s going to try again, he’s going to keep hurting you. What if it gets to be too much?”

“It won’t be.”

“You can’t know that, the more desperate he gets the more dangerous his attempts will be. Dean, you have to take precautions.”

Dean looked guiltily around the circle of their current prison and then grimaced at Sam. “I didn’t bring anything to hold you down.”

Sam gulped, and thrust his chin at the angel blade still gripped in Dean’s hand. Dean looked down at it, and up, and then down again as Sam’s legs gave out and he slumped to the ground.

“I’m exhausted,” Sam croaked. “I can’t… my body can’t go on like this. But he’ll keep making me, and not healing me.” He reached out with his hand and tentatively touched the metal. “These… this could work.”

Dean’s mind spun, thinking about how the touch of the blade to Sam’s skin had reminded him of the truth of the situation, and of how easily that same skin had parted under the pressure and the cuts were still bleeding sluggishly. Images flashed before his eyes of how much damage would be done, could be done, might be the only way. He shook his head.

“I couldn’t heal you.”

“So don’t. Just take care of the problem.”

Neither of them were saying the words, Dean following Sam’s lead as he was clearly fearful of bringing Lucifer back into control if they formed a plan out loud.

“I’ve hurt you enough,” Dean said, trying to shake his head. Sam scrambled to hold Dean's hips, and then his knees when his arms slipped down.

“And I don’t want to hurt you at all.”

“_I’m not cutting off your goddamn hands, Sam!” _he whispered.

Sam blinked, confusion coloring his features and a small half-smile stretching his lips. “That’s… I mean that really wasn’t what I was suggesting.”

His face went blank in between one blink and the next, and evil looked out and made a grab for the blade. Dean pivoted, kicked Sam’s chest to send him sprawling to the centre of the dome and looked at where he’d landed, arm outstretched. The pieces fell into place as quickly as Lucifer had fallen, and in the same second Sam’s hand moved — the fingers poised to snap. Dean couldn’t hesitate.

So he didn’t.

One punch, a second, a knee on his abdomen, and the sword lifted.

He drove it through the soft and vulnerable palm of Sam’s right hand, down and through until it lodged into the dirt beneath him. The might behind Dean’s movements made it easy, made it quick and clean.

Even so, Sam still screamed, a blood curdling screech so high and so long Dean thought it might never end. Sam tried to draw breath but the scream was stuck in his throat and he couldn’t seem to stop to inhale. When he did, finally, the second his lungs were full the cry started over, only thinner and wispier. Sam moved, shifting to try and claw the blade free with his other hand.

Dean hauled ass across the space for the second angel blade, shouting words of comfort, though he didn’t even know what they were.

“Dean, Dean! Please!” Sam begged, throat scratchy.

Dean grit his teeth, stepped over him, and held Sam’s forearm to the ground. He hesitated, the second blade hovering over Sam’s hand. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t make Sam make that noise again. He hadn’t even looked to see how much blood had bubbled out of his brother's wound and he was kneeling there as though he was going to impale the other hand like it didn’t matter.

“Sammy, I’m sorry.”

“It hurts.”

He twisted his head, looking down at Sam, studying his face. It wasn’t Sam. It wasn’t his brother. Somehow, he just knew it.

“Fuck. You.” And he drove the point home.

The scream the second time was quieter, breathy, gasping. Dean didn’t let go of Sam’s forearm, gripping it like it would help, somehow. He hunched over, silently begging for forgiveness, for this… for everything.

Sam was quiet. Shaking. Little moans spilling free as he tried to stay still, so very, very still.

“Dean, I’m alright.”

Dean sobbed, once. And then held it back. “You are not alright.”

“I asked, I asked you to.”

“I know.” It didn’t make it better.

“Please look at me.”

He did, turning slowly; he couldn’t deny Sam anything, least of all this. Sam’s face was twisted in pain, sickly pale, sweat beaded--and utterly Sam. Another sob threatened to bubble out of his throat and Dean couldn’t speak. They held eye contact for long minutes as Sam tried to settle his breathing.

“So this is new,” Sam whispered eventually. He shuddered, twitching where he was laid. His arms at right angles to his body, his legs half curled towards his torso, one ankle crossed over the other.

Splayed out and naked and…. and _crucified_. That’s what it was, that’s what Dean had done. He’d crucified his little brother to try and free him from the devil.

He laughed then, laughed in a wild, mind-numbing way that made no sense. Humor broken by the strain it was horror, horror that he couldn’t comprehend, so absurd it was hilarious. Sam’s face cracked into a pained smile too, mouth twitching up in intervals as he watched Dean uncurl, and slip closer, still caught somewhere between laughs and sobs.

“You know me,” he croaked back, “I’m always up for giving you new experiences.”

“Dean,” Sam screwed up his face. “Is it working?”

“You tell me.”

Sam’s eyes slid sideways and then he blinked. “Quiet.” Sam turned his head to look at his left hand and moaned, going even whiter at the sight of all the blood.

Dammit. Dean had been trying not to look. He followed Sam’s gaze and the scene was terrible and sick. Blood seeped into what remained of the grass and tinged the mud so dark it was almost black. Sam’s hand spasmed weakly, caught by silver pushed all the way to the hilt.

Sam choked and looked up at him. “I can’t pull free.”

“I know,” Dean replied hoarsely.

“Fuck it _hurts_. But he’s trapped now too, right?”

“Just stuck in you. Can you do it, can you cast him out?”

Sam went very still, for a very long time. Dean looked up to see the sun at its highest point, and back down, to see Sam still staring blankly ahead. And then as he sat keeping watch over Sam’s prone form the daylight faded and the black of night descended and he couldn’t wait, couldn’t keep waiting. The time distortion was getting more pronounced, their time inside the containment field filtering even slower compared to the rush of it slipping by outside. How much more time could they lose in here? How much longer before evil found, and then overpowered, the defences around them to free their master? How much longer could Dean take, before it was too late, and they never got this chance again?

Gently, he laid down in the muck beside his brother. Scooping Sam’s hair into his hand he played with the locks and murmured in Sam’s ear. “I have to take this all the way, you with me?”

Sam’s breathing was even, and shallow, his ruined hands holding him completely still. He wasn’t there, not really. All that progress, all that work, all that time…

“Sammy.”

A flicker.

A hope.

“Sam?”

A flutter of eyelashes.

A strained smile.

A whisper.

“Here.”

Sam turned his head, eyes unfocused. “Is it gonna hurt?”

“Is what going to hurt?”

“When you fuck me?”

Dean sucked in a breath, shaking his head. “I don’t know.” He did know; it was going to hurt, bad. Sam was skewered, and any jolt was going to shatter through his pinioned hands.

“I don’t want it to hurt.” Sam’s face crumpled, and suddenly Dean knew he didn’t mean the blades through his palms, he meant the sex itself.

“Hey, hey, no, it’s not going to hurt. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not him, I’m not going to let it harm you.”

Sam’s eyes squeezed shut, and he nodded.

Everything in Dean swelled up, pushing on his lungs and his throat, clawing up his insides with the pain and distress of it all. Sam had been touched with pain for too long, and it _could not stand._ He would not let it.

He leaned over, raised on his elbow, and kissed Sam softly, urgently. He groaned into Sam’s mouth and snatched up the answering moan with his tongue. His hands cupped Sam’s face and he tilted it, nipping along his jaw bone, breathing hot onto Sam’s skin.

“Nothing will ever hurt you like that again.” He meant it; he didn’t care what he’d have to do to make the promise come true, but he’d do whatever it took.

He slid over Sam’s body, getting his knees to either side of Sam’s ribs, and picked up where they had left off before. He mapped the contours of Sam’s skin without speaking, using touch as their means to communicate.

He watched Sam’s eyes roll back in his head, his lips part with pleasure, and wondered what it meant that even with the agony in his palms, Sam was still responding. What had he been conditioned into within his own mind, that he could enjoy this even while injured, even while his body endured torturous pain?

Dean wanted to erase it all. Wipe it clean. Make Sam whole and his and safe. And he couldn’t, not really, but he pushed the thought aside and carried on. It lit a spark in him, not just of arousal, but of a possessive need to cling to Sam and never let go. Every _hour_ since they’d been ripped apart, all he’d wanted was to see Sam again, and now… now he wanted to rip every minute, every day, every month and year that had built up between them to shreds. To make them not mean anything, not in the face of what lay between the two of them.

“Remember how we used to sing together, like this?” he said, low and throaty. “Remember how it felt? I’ve missed you, God I’ve missed you so much.”

“You… you, I couldn’t. Everything was too big, there wasn’t space,” Sam muttered back.

“Do you miss me now? Now you know what you’ve been missing?”

“Yes! Please, let this be real.”

“It’s real, I’m real.”

Sam’s cock was thickening under his hand, blood — what little he could spare — filling him up and making him hard. Hard for Dean, hard for real, not just inside his head. Dean scooted backwards and hunkered down, and slipped the head of Sam’s cock into his mouth, sucking, lapping at it. Sam yelled, eyes open wide, rocking his hips up and screeching when the movement tugged his hands.

“Be still, I’ve got you,” Dean said pulling off with a pop, and placing a firm hand on Sam’s hip bone. He licked a stripe up the side of Sam’s cock, and used his hand to jack him, sure and steady. Trying to keep Sam from moving too much, he pushed Sam’s knees apart, gently, sliding into place between them. He only had one angle to play with, only one way to make this work, but he would.

His own cock was hot and hard, risen near his stomach and twitching. The anticipation was killing him, he thought, the stretch of time that had folded out around them made it seem impossible that they were still going, still doing this.

He rocked up, pushing his own cock side by side with Sam’s and letting the spit he’d put there help them glide together as his hands wrapped around them. In the time it took to rut and grip and move together a whole day passed outside. He watched the flickering iridescent colors of the magic-imbued dome shift and swirl, and storm clouds gather above.

He lifted Sam’s hips, to a guttural cry, and steeled his nerves. He couldn’t do it without shifting Sam and making the angel blades cut against his already bleeding palms. But he had to bring Sam back, fully, and Sam had agreed. But even so...

“Tell me to stop and I’ll stop.” He leaned over, bracing either side of Sam’s body so their heads were near. “Tell me this is enough, tell me you can hear me enough to win like this, tell me I don’t have to and I won’t.”

Sam blinked up at him, a curious expression flitting across his face. “Don’t want to. Have to,” he squeezed out, and it seemed to pain him to say it.

Didn’t want to. Didn’t have a choice. Didn’t have a better option.

So this would have to do.

The bottle of holy oil lay innocently a few paces away, it wouldn’t be innocent for much longer. He grabbed for it, uncorking the jug with a thumb and drizzling it over his cock. Wet, and sticky, but cool on his heated skin it felt like he was finally doing something right.

As he lined up between Sam’s legs, rubbing his fingers over Sam’s hole to help his muscles relax, he caught sight of the rain falling around them. No noise penetrated their prison, no scent of wet earth or lightening struck air. All there was was Sam, and him, and absolutely nothing between them.

The downpour outside fell like sheets of glass to his eyes, looked like a waterfall raining past them as it appeared all at once, beautiful and terrible. Powerful. The clouds above were dark as anything he’d ever seen, thick and roiling and low.

Sam’s eyes tracked upwards, watching the show, and Dean slowly leaned over and caught the back of his head with a hand. “You with me?”

“All the way.”

Dean didn’t need to worry about Sam being cleaned or prepped, Lucifer would keep his vessel pristine — nothing in Sam’s body for _years_. And he had his spit, and the oil on his fingertips, and he pushed in to widen Sam’s hole and keep him held there. Dean massaged and coaxed Sam’s muscles to let him in, working him like a virgin hole, just because he could.

He breathed in deeply and settled his hands on Sam’s hips. Sam made a low keening sound in his throat and Dean looked up, looked into his eyes, and smiled.

“Not going to hurt, remember? I promise.”

“Okay, okay Dean.”

And then he pushed in, rolling gently so Sam wouldn’t budge. Pressed forward, and eased back. Letting his length slide into Sam in increments. It was heaven. And hell, and everything in between.

Manic, insane, utter madness to be doing it here and now. Everything he’d wanted and never hoped to get, everything he didn’t plan on doing to bring Sam back and yet — _and yet_ — he couldn’t deny how good it felt. He was home. Sam was home. Together and right.

The storm brewed, flashes of stark bright that flickered to their eyes in milliseconds before being gone. Lighting up Sam’s starkly bruised skin and making the gold on Dean’s chest sparkle.

Sam was breathing sharply, chest punching in and out while his limbs remained stock still.

“Here, just us,” Dean murmured, “doing so good, so good.” His cock sank further into Sam’s body and he groaned, hands slipping from Sam’s hips to the ground beside him. He hunkered over Sam’s body, holding himself up on shaking limbs.

All the strength within him couldn’t contain the body shocks that ripped through him, sensation and touch alighting his every nerve ending.

“More, can’t feel, not enough.”

Dean was doubtful, Sam looked wrecked as it was. But he doubled down, surging up and then rolling his hips back out. The space between them was too much and too big and he thrust back in, finally buried to the hilt. He stopped there, letting them both adjust, letting Sam feel how stretched out and full Dean made him. He gripped Sam's hips and squeezed, wait for a response.

“Don’t touch me,” Sam hissed.

“He’s not here, Sam, he can’t.”

“Let me out!”

“Let go, let him go,” Dean urged.

His head hung down level with his shoulders, and he slid in and out of Sam, letting his cock pull almost free and catch on the rim, before pushing back in.

“Sam, remember our first time? Remember how we did it?” He wouldn’t weaken, not with Cas’ power inside his very essence, but he held back all the same to keep some semblance of reserve and control.

“Yes…” Sam answered.

“Yes?”

Sam shook his head, licked his lips, and cried out weakly but Dean hadn’t jolted him. He’d been so careful not to jolt him, the pain must have been immense as it was. The pain Sam was experiencing now must have been coming from inside.

“Burns! Fuck, it burns! _Stop, please!_”

Sam needed real, he needed true. Dean rutted forward in a quick thrust and Sam gasped back to the present, blinking furiously. He held back a moan and his fingers twitched around the metal spiked through his flesh.

“Again,” Sam said.

“Like before?”

“Like the best.”

Like their first time, no finesse and no holding back. Dean gulped, and fucked. Sam screamed, head thrown back and throat bared and yelled and said _yes _and _please_ and _more._ Dean carefully had Sam’s hips lifted and he steadied them as best he could while he pistoned in and out of his ass. The blades still cut deeper as Sam’s hands shook with the weight of the thrusts, cutting open the wounds around the edges.

It looked like agony but Sam’s face was clear and bright and _there_.

“Can feel you,” he moaned.

“Good, that’s good. Feel it.” Dean wanted to lean over and kiss him to make this sweet, but sweet wasn’t what they needed. His cock was straining, his balls kept drawing up wanting to empty but _not yet._

He threw his head back and looked up, seeing the storm breaking apart and the sun peaking through. His whole body followed the movement and it felt like swimming, rising up and therefore _in_ to Sam, and drawing away and drawing _out_. He rippled with it, his muscles strong and sure and glistening. Sam below him was sweat streaked and shuddering with eyes screwed shut.

“Does it hurt?” Dean asked on an upwards thrust.

“No,” Sam gasped, “Not you.”

“Hands?” he asked as he drew away.

Sam nodded. “And there’s, he’s - he is trying, too, hurry, _please_!”

“What’s the rush?" Dean slowed right down, making Sam whine. “This isn’t stopping just because you think it should, or because he thinks it should. I can go _forever_.”

“Silly little boys,” snarled a voice that was like Sam’s but not Sam’s. “You really think a human thing like this can be the thing to beat me?”

“If you weren’t so afraid, I’d say no. But as it is…” Dean pushed back in, widening Sam’s hole with one hand by spreading Sam’s check apart. He pushed a finger in to the second knuckle alongside his cock. Sam appeared again, gasping.

“Fuck, so much, fuck, Dean it’s too much.”

“Never, never,” Dean replied, turning and bending to kiss Sam’s knee where it was bent around his hip.

He licked a hand and stroked his palm up Sam’s cock, drawing it up and circling back around and closing his fingers as he did so. Sam should feel this too. They could save each other like this, together and bright as stars in the black. Stronger as one, braver and smarter, able to endure more. Their connection was deep, deep enough it seemed to scare the very mind of the devil.

It would overcome.

He fucked, languid and soft, and then harsh and wild.

Sam was faltering, little shifts on his face that let Dean know he was thinking and far, far away in his own head.

“Why don’t you let go?” he asked, as the light outside changed once again. He’d lost track now--how many days since they’d started, how long had they been entwined like this?

“I don’t want to be alone.”

“I’m here.”

“Are you though?”

“Where else would I be?”

“If it’s a trick…?”

“Sam, we’ve been over this, this is what’s real. Can’t you feel it?”

“What if, but _what if, _Dean. If he’s gone too, I’d be alone down here.” Sam’s eyes shone with tears, and Dean stopped fucking. He held himself inside Sam and waited it out, waited for Sam to cry. His face broke finally in a sob, lower lip wet and shining.

“You think if you kick Lucifer out, you’ll be alone in hell, in the cage?”

Sam nodded, his head slipping to the side, following the line of his body to the blade stuck in his left hand. “Stuck like this, no one to help. I’ll be so cold. Abandoned.”

“No, no, Sam. Look.” He pulled free in a rush, uncaring of whether it hurt to drop Sam’s hips back to the ground, and crawled up Sam’s body until he could reach for Sam’s hand. He touched the blade, trailed a finger down to the place it disappeared into the meat and muscle of Sam’s palm. Sam jolted violently at the touch.

“That’s real pain, that’s why you're able to be so present.” He touched again, pressing harder, and Sam opened his mouth in a silent scream, face tight with tension. Dean circled the incision, getting sticky half-dried blood on his fingertip. He drew a line with it from Sam’s wrist where it had pooled and dripped down to the ground all the way up to Sam’s elbow.

Sam was watching intently, mouth parted, eyes wide.

“So you make this stone number one, okay? This right here, believe that.” Dean dipped his head into the crook of Sam’s neck, breathing in the scent of him — still the same, after all this time.

Sam leaned into the touch, and nodded.

“Say it.”

“Stone number one,” Sam said shakily. “You’re here. Not alone.”

“You’ve got it, you can do this. Can you feel anything else? What else is true, what else is here?”

While Sam thought about it, Dean got back to work. Lazily and in no rush, he worked his hands across Sam’s bruises, between the cuts on his chest and the scrapes and muddied scuffs on his shoulders and thighs.

“This, you feel this?” he asked, over and over, until Sam was keening under his touch.

“Yes, all of it. Yes.” Sam convulsed when Dean got his mouth around Sam’s cock again, and screamed, sobbing when Dean pulled away without letting him get close to coming.

“Tell me what you see,” he said, lining up between Sam’s legs again, closing Sam’s ankles around his back and holding him there.

“There’s a sky…”

“And?” Dean asked, nudging his way between the crack of Sam’s ass.

“Something… moving. Oil, like… stars.”

Dean glanced up and surveyed the means of their protection. It was littered with clusters of color and light, roiling and sparking as it crackled. He could almost hear the hum and buzz of the magic, like a spark of electricity in the back of his mind. The taste of copper sat heavy on his tongue, copper and stone and something inhuman his mind couldn’t place.

On a slow pull out he poured more holy oil onto his cock before inching back into Sam. He thrust slowly upwards to rock Sam’s hips and hit his prostate, letting the slick slide of oil ease the way.

“Yes, and who else is here?”

“Lucifer,” Sam said without hesitation. “Always, always. I can’t… Dean I can’t do this.”

“You can and you will!”

They were so close now, Sam was so close to breaking free Dean could feel it. If he could just keep him here and not let him slip. He could feel Sam clench around him, reacting, knowing it, aware and awake and _wanting._

He fucked and thrust, rising up and pushing down, breath hot and cock hotter. He was alive with it, so desperate, he just wanted Sam back. Wanted him to stay.

Sam’s eyes focused on him, intent, and yet even now they turned glassy and wild around the edges. They shook in their sockets, flitting between Dean and some other reality.

“Come back, come fucking back Sam.” Dean rocked them, staving off an orgasm of his own over and over, pulling away when Sam got too tight and too hot. Paid attention to Sam’s cock and made sure he was part of this, that Dean was giving him more than just pain and confusion.

“Hey, look at me.”

Sam did, weakly turning his gaze.

“You’re mine, you hear me? Mine. Not his, you’re _mine,_ Sam.”

“Okay.”

And that wasn’t good enough. His need took over and in a frenzy he was fucking Sam’s ass with bruising force. Sam cried out, and Dean slid his eyes past the tearing of Sam’s hands against the sharp blades, looked out, and up. In one forward motion he thrust up and threw his head back and saw the moon fly across the sky and sink behind the distant tree line. All tinged blue and purple, all locked away behind magic that had contained them for what must be weeks.

To the outside they must have looked like statues he thought, their motions so slow as to be hardly visible, caught up together in a sight so gruesome and carnal. Possessive. Bodies poised so intimately.

He was ready for this to be over; even without exhaustion pulling at his physical body he felt _done._ Sam had been in distress for too long.

“Say it, Sam, say it and know it,” he pleaded. “Mine, you’re mine.”

“Yours, I’m yours.”

Their hips met flush and Dean’s balls tightened, drawing up. His skin was aflame with desire.

“So be mine again,” he shouted, “be mine.”

“I am, I'm yours!”

Dean came, finally, spilling deep into Sam’s ass and fucking through his orgasm. His hand fumbled for Sam’s cock and he held it in one warm palm, circling it and rubbing gently even as his hips pounded away.

Sam’s eyes found him, bright and clear and Dean nodded. Sam breathed deep, closed his eyes, and Dean pulled him over the edge.

When they were done, still coming down from the high, he leaned over, “But you know who owns you?”

Sam jerked, shock and hurt closing his mouth into a tight line.

“Nobody, nobody owns you but you, Sam. You are your own, now and forever.”

Sam audibly swallowed. “You could. I’d- I’d let you.”

“No, I don’t want that, I—”

“What if I do, what if that’s what I need?”

Dean was still buried deep in Sam’s ass and it felt wrong. He moved to pull out and Sam cried out weakly and he tried to squeeze Dean with his thighs and ankles. It wouldn’t have stopped Dean, there wasn’t enough strength there, but he held still as Sam so clearly wanted.

“I can’t do this alone.”

“You’re not alone, I promise.”

“But I am, the… the responsibility, the blame…” Sam’s head flopped backwards, as he looked around. “It’s too big. He’s had me for so long. So long, Dean, you have no idea.”

Dean did, a little; he’d been apart from Sam and counted every second. But he knew, for Sam, that it was more than that.

“I’ll do whatever you need to help you, but you need — you deserve! — to be free.”

“I can’t be free, not ever again. Not after this. But I could be yours, really and truly yours, in every way. If you took me, I would like to, to…” Sam gulped, breath quickening.

“You’re stronger than him, I know it,” Dean interjected fiercely. He covered Sam with his body as much as he could, suddenly unable to forget that they could be seen, that this wasn’t private. It felt too exposed, too bare.

“Not without you, I’m not. Please, take me. I just want to belong. Belong to someone who deserves to have me.”

And they did deserve one another, after all this--they deserved nothing more and nothing less. Every fibre of Dean’s body ached with the closeness, and every memory made him want to weep at what they’d become. So broken; a man with nothing but rage and whisky and death inside him, and the other kind and willful, but sacrificed and cut to pieces by the weavings of fate. They’d been each other’s downfall and a burden on the world for so long, and Dean knew he’d failed long ago to keep anyone safe, Sam most of all. There was nothing they deserved more than being together, to see and be reminded of everything they’d done wrong to get them here, and of everything they’d lost. And to be given the one thing they wanted most all at the same time — each other.

“Sammy, you already know I’d choose you over everything, tell me how I can make that more clear.”

Sam just bared his neck at Dean, never breaking eye contact, but rolling his head away in a sign of submission.

“Own me. Keep me in check, make it easier.” He shuddered, wincing like he’d been burned.

Dean looked up with a jolt, remembering the little pot of gold paint he’d hidden, here for the final stage of the plan, the final need. But maybe… maybe…

“You're sure?” he asked.

“Do you want me?” Sam answered.

“You and me, come whatever.”

Dean pulled out scrambled for the glass jar, twisting it open as he hurried back to Sam’s side. “This isn’t what this was for, but I think it could work. Magic is all symbolism and intent, right? If you submit…”

Sam inhaled through his nose and closed his eyes. “Make me yours, so that I can’t be his.”

Two fingers dipped into the gold substance, thick and creamy. Dean hesitated only a moment and then laid his fingertips to the bare skin of Sam’s throat. Atop bruises and marks, contusions and cuts, he carefully dragged a collar of gold around the nape of his brothers neck.

It glowed bright and strongly as the two sides met and closed, looking for a second like a solid heavy metal band before it faded back to flow and settle with the curves of Sam’s body.

Dean surveyed Sam’s pinned hands, coated in blood, still as stone. One blade came free easily enough when he pulled, a sickening _thwack_ as it left Sam’s hand, suctioned between the ligaments and bone. Sam’s gasp was pained and surprised, but Dean’s hand was steady and sure as he drew a gold cuff that matched the one at Sam’s neck around the bloodied skin of Sam’s wrist.

Sam was braced now, waiting and shaking with it. Dean moved quickly, afraid of what might happen if he didn’t. The second blade slipped free with a slick slide of blood and Dean held back his urge to retch. Sam didn’t move or protest, didn’t even flinch, as a second cuff circled him. As Dean closed the circuit and the paint met, Sam’s body arched off the ground and he convulsed as heat and light emanated from his neck and wrists.

Dean shielded his eyes against the worst of it, catching only a glimpse of the process as all three symbols of submission glowed and turned as heavy as weighted metal, and then melted back to the soft sheen of paint.

Sam panted roughly on the ground, curled around his body, his ruined hands held claw-like and stiff. Dean turned Sam on his back, shifting them both so Sam was half held upright against his body. Sam’s eyes flickered and he smiled when he opened them and looked at Dean. Dean picked up one of Sam's hands and rubbed a thumb over the fresh paint. It didn’t smudge or smear. Just like the sigils on his own skin, it held fast and wouldn’t rub away.

Not until Sam wanted them too, would it wash away. Or… or was it until Dean wanted them to? Was he in control now? Did he hold Sam’s fate in his hands?

“Well?” he asked, gently jostling his brother, who was leaning heavily, his head resting on Dean’s shoulder.

“Yours,” Sam croaked.

It tightened something in his chest and he didn’t know if it was fear or relief. But they were joined now, and nothing could deny it. Sam had given over, and Dean had claimed him, Dean had chosen to own him and Sam had chosen to belong. Could it be this simple? Would it be enough?

Dean touched Sam with tentative fingers, placing them on Sam’s lips in a whisper of a hope. They were still smeared with paint, and left an imprint of faint gold behind in the middle of Sam’s mouth. It was endearing and arousing, and when Sam’s chest fluttered with an exhausted breath and his lips parted, the flash of the deep pink behind the glint of gold made Dean’s breath stop in his chest.

“Sammy, you ready?”

Sam nodded and winced as he pushed away from Dean, keeping him at arm's length. He looked deep into Dean’s eyes, sure and alert. Unwavering.

_“Get out.”_ It came out as a whisper. And then louder, as a shout that battered Dean’s eardrums. “_**Get out!”**_

Sam's head snapped back and his body went rigid. Dean braced himself and the fury and ferocity of the streak of angel matter that left Sam’s lips was still enough to make him hunker backwards.

It felt like it went on for an age as Sam’s gold-tinged lips parted in a silent scream. And then it was over.

Although.

Not quite.

There wasn’t time for relief or jubilation, and there was nowhere for Lucifer’s essence to go. It rebounded off the walled dome, ricocheting around, and the screech of it was deafening.

Dean lurched for his shovel, and then hurried back to Sam, bent over his knees and keeping his head low. Sam crawled along the ground as Lucifer’s malice thundered above them, and Dean reached for him and pulled him close.

“Over here!” he shouted, dragging Sam toward the centre where there was slightly more room above their heads. “Dig!”

He showed Sam where they needed to dig and between them they tore through the earth with one shovel and aching fingers until they struck glass. Sam frowned in question and Dean could only mouth _“later”_ and shake his head.

The small glass chest was heavy and cumbersome, with an intricate mechanism that Dean fumbled to open, and then threw the lid back with triumph. He held it aloft and like a moth to a flame the bright blue streak of the Morning Star slammed into the box, and with the inner strength of his own angel, Dean forced it closed.

Panting noisily, they looked at each other over the shining, shimmering box. The white-blue light that glowed within swirled and eddied. It would be beautiful if they didn’t know who, and what, it was.

“Will it hold?” Sam asked.

“For now. Pass me that paint,” Dean answered, only realising how stupid it was to ask when Sam struggled to lift it. “Sorry, let me.” He took it, and opened it, and poured the contents over the chest.

It ran in rivulets into the carved grooves and spaces, flooding the inset markings so they were lit up true and came alive with the spell of containment. Dean nodded, satisfied, and was about to throw the chest as far away as he could when Sam held his hand aloft above it.

“My blood, from his perfect vessel, to help seal him in?”

“I… that…” Dean couldn’t believe Sam would offer so readily, without knowing the consequences. “There’s a cost. If you do that—”

“I’ll pay it.” Sam didn’t wait to be given permission or approval — stubborn, headstrong, sure, all the things Dean had missed — just clenched his wounded right hand, making a surge of blood appear and wiping it around the glass box in an unbroken line around the circumference. The light within dimmed noticeably and Dean placed it gently down, and drew Sam away.

Sam was faltering, Dean could see it. They ended up prostrate on the ground again, with Dean holding Sam up. Without Lucifer to sustain him, he was weaker by the second. He couldn’t stay upright, couldn’t form clear words; his last act of rebellion seemed to have taken all his strength and the pain he was in zapped away his reserves so very quickly.

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you, hold on for me.”

Sam mumbled something that sounded like _I’m not going anywhere Dean._ And he wasn’t, not if Dean has anything to say about it.

This prison needed to be broken; this ordeal was over. They were free. They were in the clear.

It had _worked._

Dean was elated, ecstatic, and only had to give the word and it would all be done. The spell would be broken and they would leave. He looked out at the field around them, saw his men striding forward and then standing close, waiting. They must have seen the flare of Lucifer’s light, must have known something had changed.

It was now or never, and he just had to hope he’d put his trust in the right people.

Dean came back to himself, from behind the shutters of his eyes, to Cas making a way for him and Sam through the press of many bodies.

That had been the plan, that he would let Cas out to reveal himself and his wings, and their small battalion on the outside would know it was safe to release them from inside the spelled earth.

He watched as a passenger in his own body as Cas pulled Sam close — Sam who had been healed of his wounds now, Dean could see, thank God Cas had the ability to do that — and tried to make the men and women surrounding them back away and let them pass. Sam was cringing slightly, letting his hair hang down across his face. He looked so young all of a sudden, and overwhelmed.

_Cas, I’m back, time to go._

_I’ll meet you back at your tent, Bobby can show you the way._

And then Cas departed in a rush of consciousness that left Dean reeling for several seconds.

“Sam, I’m here,” he whispered when he regained his footing. Everyone drew back at Cas’s departure, giving them more room, but the commotion was no less, it was just one pace away. He drew his arm around Sam, pulling him close and trying to hide Sam’s naked body from view. Why had no one offered clothes? Why had no one even brought a blanket or a sheet?

The clamouring around them was loud, even though when Dean really looked it was only a dozen or so people. But after so long without any noise other than what either he or Sam created, it was shocking to the ear.

He spied Irv in the crowd and nodded. “Tell ‘em to back off, will ya?” He didn’t have the energy or the heart to do it himself, too focused on the shaking form of Sam beside him. There would be further battles today, more things he needed to be in control of, but Sam had to come first.

“Alright, clear off, you heard the man. Let them through. Yes, you’ll all get all the answers you want later. Go on, fuck off and be glad it worked.” Irv yelled to be heard above the clamouring.

“When are we clearing out? Can we be done with this shithole now?” someone yelled.

“We’re done when I say we’re done,” Dean shouted back, turning briefly to level his mightiest glare on the small crowd.

He nodded at Irv and eased Sam over the stony, grassy ground. Bobby stepped forward, and the man was the best sight Dean could’ve seen. And he had blankets. Dean draped one around Sam’s shoulders, and winked at his brother.

“Don’t mind everyone, they’re just nosy pieces of shit.”

Sam nodded, looking unconvinced.

Bobby led them through a veritable maze of tents until they came to the one Dean called home, most of the time. Not too big, but big enough for two, as he’d always hoped it would be used for.

“There you go, boys, you just yell up if you need anything. You’re a sight for sore eyes, kid, you know that?” Bobby said, clasping Sam’s shoulder gently.

“Good to see you too,” Sam replied quietly.

Dean nodded thanks and ushered Sam inside, and when the tent flap closed behind them, something loosened in his chest that had been tight and fraught with pain for years.

“So, settle in, we can get you comfortable,” he said, pushing Sam into the small space. There were two cots, and two bags with clothes enough for the both of them.

“What is this?” Sam asked, gesturing around them.

“It’s a tent.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“This is...” Dean rubbed at his eyes. “This is me, who I’ve become. My men, the last defence against the apocalypse.”

Sam’s eyebrows shot into his hair. “You? A leader?”

“Don’t make that face. I know some things, I can be commanding.”

“I know you do, I just didn’t think _you _knew that about yourself enough to take control.”

He wasn’t the same person Sam had known, not completely. Way down where it counted, yes, but so much had happened. There was so much to tell, and so much to hide from even the person he trusted most.

“Well, control is a tenuous thing. Not everyone was too happy with this plan. We might have to get out of here quick, if we don’t want to fight our way out.”

Sam turned suddenly quiet, seeming to sink into himself. “Because of me.”

“Because of Lucifer," Dean corrected, "they just haven’t all learned the difference yet. I’ll make them see. No one touches a hair on your head, not unless they want to answer to me.”

“I’d say I don’t need you to fight my battles for me but…” Sam held out his gold cuffed wrists, a strange expression on his face. Contentment, mixed with scrutiny. “Maybe it’s best if you do.”

Dean gathered him up in a sudden hug, breathing in all of him. Here, safe at last. Sam was stiff, tense in his arms… so maybe not feeling as safe as he was.

“Sorry,” Dean cleared his throat. “We don’t have to do--I mean, whatever you need, or don’t need…”

“You can do whatever you want with me, isn’t that what we decided?”

Dean frowned, fairly sure that _wasn’t _what they decided, but Sam sat down heavily on the makeshift bed and rested his elbows on his knees.

“Let’s just… let's just get you cleaned up.”

Whatever inner wounds Sam had to heal wouldn’t be fixed with a few hugs or a few days of safety. They were in for a world of hurt and long dark nightmares, and the days ahead spread out in Dean’s mind before him in a way that felt exhausting just to think about. For now, though, he could help with this one small thing at least.

With a pot of freshly boiled water on the small camp burner Dean had, they slowly washed away the blood, muck, and grime from their bodies. It wasn’t luxurious by any means but it felt like bliss. Dean was careful, choosing to keep the painted signs on his back and the intertwining ones flowing over his forearms, not wanting Sam to be the only one with visible marks left behind. The others washed away though, as if they’d never been.

When they were halfway done, washcloths aplenty covered in dirt and blood, there was a rapping on the tent canvas and a gruff voice.

“You decent, brother?”

They were, half-dressed now and just working mud out of their hair.

“Benny, come on in.” Dean’s relief deepened; friends, they needed friends. “Where’s Cas?”

“Relaying what he knows of the fight to the masses, he got the fast-forwarded version when he took control of your noggin there apparently. He’s showing them Lucifer’s essence too, making sure they know he isn’t in this one.” Benny jabbed a finger at Sam and Sam retreated slightly.

Benny’s nostrils flared, and his fangs dropped, for a fraction of a second.

“Hey, you good?” Dean stepped between them.

“Sorry, no harm meant, there’s a lot of blood scent in here is all.” Benny took great effort to retract his fangs and smiled with thinned lips when he was done.

“Sam, this is Benny, by the way, he’s good people. Always got my back.” Dean clasped forearms with him, bracing for the strength Benny had. “He also happens to be a vamp, but we don’t hold that against him, most of the time.”

Benny smiled, big and broad. “And I don’t hold your puny human fragility against you, most of the time. Nice to finally meet you Sam, Dean hasn’t shut up about you since I met him.”

Sam nodded, and his throat gleamed gold. Benny frowned at the markings, looking to Dean to explain. He mouthed _later_, and pulled a shirt over his head.

“I just came to say that Bobby still thinks you should head out of here ahead of the rest of ‘em. They’ll come around to the idea of having Sam amongst us given time, but for now…”

“For now I’m still a wanted man,” Sam sighed.

“That’s how it is, I’m afraid, but they’ll see sense eventually.”

“What about Roger's faction?” Dean asked.

“Already routed out, Bobby and Irv saw them off about half an hour ago. They were damn pissed, was quite a sight to see.” Benny laughed dryly.

“Well, they had their usefulness as extra man power when we needed it, but I knew we couldn’t trust them to agree to letting us both live.”

It was only Sam they would be after, Dean knew, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. Sam was troubled enough, had been tormented enough.

“I’ll let you two finish up. Take your time, there ain’t no huge rush. But, the sooner the better I suppose.”

Dean rubbed tiredly at his eyes as Benny left. They’d have to drive through the night, him and Sam, and maybe Cas and one or two others following.

Sam slipped his hand into Dean’s, pulling him down to sit beside him. The bowl of scummy water got moved aside, and they leaned against each other, not needing to speak.

“It’s going to be okay, Dean,” Sam said eventually.

“That stunt you pulled with the box,” Dean shook his head, “that was a bold move.”

“What does it mean for us, do you know?”

Dean brightened. _Us,_ not just _him_. Together, as always. No longer fighting alone.

“It means you’re tied to that son of a bitch a bit longer. It means your blood is one key to keeping him locked up. Until we find a way to force him back into the cage, keeping you safe and whole would probably be the best idea.”

“That was your plan anyway, though, right? Keeping me safe.” Sam said it with the first note of humor Dean had heard from him in years, and Sam jostled his shoulder and he smiled.

“Yeah, pretty much. And I own your ass now, so you don’t even have a say.” Dean clapped him on the knee, turning with grin.

Sam’s eyes were tired, drawn, but though he fingered the paint on his wrists he didn’t look mad or unsure. Dean closed a hand around Sam’s bony fingers and wrist alike, and leaned in to kiss the mark around Sam’s neck.

The gold was still on Sam’s lips, and Dean wondered if he should will it away, but couldn’t bring himself to do it, at least not yet.

“Anytime you’ve had enough of these, they’re gone, okay?” he said instead.

“That’s like asking if I’ll ever have enough of you,” Sam answered.

So, maybe never.

And maybe that’s just how it should be.

This--this was what a new beginning looked like.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, there it is, I hope you got what you wanted out of the fic. I'd love to hear some thoughts, comments always welcome <3
> 
> [Song with a feel I was trying to reach by the end of the fic](https://youtu.be/LWMBG1Z0FuE)  
Orpheus by Sara Bareillis  
_Come by the fire, lay down your head_  
_My love, I see you're growing tired_  
_So set the bad day by the bed, and rest a while_  
__  
_Your eyes can close_  
_You don't have to do a thing but listen to me sing_  
_I know you miss the world, the one you knew_  
_The one where everything made sense_  
_Because you didn't know the truth, that's how it works_  
_'Til the bottom drops out and you learn_  
_We're all just hunters seeking solid ground_
> 
> _Don't stop trying to find me here amidst the chaos_  
_Though I know it's blinding, there's a way out_  
_Say out loud_  
_We will not give up on love now_  
_No fear, don't you turn like Orpheus, just stay here_  
_Hold me in the dark, and when the day appears_  
_We'll say_  
_We did not give up on love today_
> 
> And again, please go look at the artwork up close [on live journal](https://phoenix1966.livejournal.com/33888.html) or [on tumblr](https://phoenix1966sbottom.tumblr.com/post/187677961174/amidst-the-chaos-author-name-anoddsock-artist) and let my bang partner know if you liked it!


End file.
